POPLAR GROVE, Ill. (WTVO) — A Boone County firefighter, who helped deal with the catastrophic tornado damage to Belvidere’s Apollo Theater, came home Friday to find his family farm damaged by the storm.

“I was pretty much shocked. And then I realized that this is beyond my ability to take care of, so I immediately called for some backup,” said Ryan Lindberg, whose family runs a farm in Poplar Grove.

The National Weather Service on Tuesday confirmed a EF-1 tornado, producing winds of 95 mph, touched down from Poplar Grove to Delevan Lake, Wisconsin, over a 27-mile path that was 150 yards wide at its maximum width.

The tornado knocked the farm’s grain bin into the gas meter, causing a potentially dangerous situation.

Lindberg and his family reside on The Pumpkin Patch, just down the street, in Caledonia, but he said they had no damage there.

But Don Lindberg’s farm, Ryan’s grandfather, wasn’t so lucky.

“So, basically it destroyed everything on the farm, except for our houses and one building. Everything else is either totally destroyed or damaged heavily,” he said.

Don said he’s never seen anything like it before and believes repairs could exceed $1 million.

“Of course, you always wonder, do they have insurance? Well, we have insurance, but it’s nowhere near what the damage was,” he said.

Tuesday morning, the family worked to get $100,000 worth of corn out of the damaged grain bin before more storms moved in that night.

“We dry our own corn here. We store our corn here,” Lindberg said. “These are things that we won’t be able to do anymore, with our farm. So, it’s devastating to our business.”

The Lindberg family said even though they have damage to deal with, they thank God no one was hurt.

“I want to rebuild it, you know, I want to put it back together,” Lindberg said. “This is a vision I’ve always had, and the vision my grandfather’s had, and my father has had, you know? So, yeah, we’re going to keep going.”

The family says they will delay planting this year and will use local grain elevators for storage, as they think it could take over a year to rebuild.